Featured Hobnailers: Kathy Jones & Rachel Bishop

Our “Featured Hobnailers” series spotlights past and upcoming Hobnail trekkers. In this episode, we interview mother/daughter trekkers Kathy Jones and Rachel Bishop, both of St. Simons Island, Georgia. Kathy and Rachel tackled the Everest Base Camp Classic trek as part of Hobnail’s inaugural group back in April 2018, and then our Salkantay trek in Peru in 2022. (They are pictured here somewhere on that trek.)

Q: What is your occupation?

Kathy: I’m a retired nonsense creator!
Rachel: I work as a physician’s assistant.

Q: How and when did you get into adventure travel?

Kathy: When my lovely daughter invited me to climb to the rooftop of Africa.
Rachel: When I was a teenager, my mom and I did a bike ride across Georgia (BRAG) every summer.

Q: Where was your first out-of-country adventure? How did it go?

Kathy: 2016 Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, Africa.
Rachel: I did a bike tour of Tuscany, Italy, in 2009.

Q: How did you discover Hobnail Trekking?

Kathy: Through another hiker on the EBC trip, Shari Seaman.
Rachel: Same!

Q: What are some of your favorite memories from your trip?

Kathy: EBC … so many. Salsa lessons, the majesty of the Himalayas, crossing steel hanging bridges with yaks, walking through the snow along the memorials of those who have died along the trek, and all the wonderful Nepalese people at all the tea houses
Rachel: EBC – the majesty of the Himalayas, hiking near the Khumbu Icefall, tea houses, new friendships. Peru – hiking thru the coffee plantations, cooking lesson and coffee roasting, camping at Llactapata, laughing in the tent with my mother.

Q: How did your expectations for the trip differ from reality?

Kathy: I really didn’t have any expectations.
Rachel: I try not to have expectations of a trip. I just go with the flow and enjoy what comes.

Q: Were you nervous or concerned about anything prior to the trip?

Kathy: Not nervous, just excited!

Rachel: I had high altitude pulmonary edema while hiking Kilimanjaro a few years prior with a different company, so I was concerned that would happen again in the Himalayas. Hobnail did a much better job of acclimatizing us in the Himalayas than during my Africa trip, and I had no problem at all.

Q: What other destinations are on your adventure-travel bucket list?

Kathy: I’d love to do the Annapurna Circuit someday.
Rachel: Annapurna, Bhutan – Tigers nest monastery, Iceland, Galapagos.